I’ll spare you my standard speech about miniature food. Suffice it to say: If it’s small, I’m all over it. These mini meat loaves are no exception.

Based on Ina Garten’s fabulous recipe, these meat loaves pack huge comfort-food goodness in a small package. They’re a great thing to serve at a dinner party. I mean, come on: Who wouldn’t love a little meatloaf, made just for them?

Ina’s original recipe calls for all chuck (which is cheap and delicious).

I used a more traditional meatloaf mix of beef, pork, and veal. Use any mix of meat you like. Just be sure you wind up with 2 1/2 lbs. For the beef, definitely get ground chuck if you can. It has tons of flavor.

I also swapped in panko bread crumbs for regular, which provide a nice texture.

Panko are Japanese bread crumbs (made from crustless white bread). Most major grocery stores carry panko these days. If you can’t find them in your area, hit up an Asian market or order some online.

Panko bread crumbs

These little loaves are moist and meaty and all-together nap inducing, like all good comfort food. They have a subtle sweetness from a few cups of caramelized sweet onions, and mellow, earthy notes from mushroom soy sauce and a generous amount of fresh thyme.

The top gets covered in regular old ketchup. I like Heinz, but by all means, use your favorite.

Barbecue sauce would work, too, though the flavor could be overpowering depending on what kind you use.

Caramelize the onions

Put the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pan on the stove over medium heat. Measure out 3 cups of onions. Toss them in the pan.

Add the thyme, black pepper, and a little kosher salt. (Go easy on the salt because you’re going to add mushroom soy, which is plenty salty, later on.) Stir to combine.

Cook over medium heat for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until translucent and brown. (Keep an eye on your heat and turn it down if need be. You want them to brown, but not stick to the pan and burn.)

When they look about like this, yank the pan off the heat.

Add the mushroom soy sauce, tomato paste, and chicken stock to the pan with the onions.

Stir to combine. Set the pan aside for a minute or two while you deal with the meat.

Make the meat mixture

Grab your meat. Toss it all in a large bowl.

Add the panko bread crumbs.

Quickly beat the eggs.

Pour the beaten eggs into the bowl.

And add the onion mixture.

Now, here’s the trick to making meatloaf that’s light and fluffy (i.e. not dense, thick, and heavy). Are you ready?

*dramatic music*

Don’t overmix it.

In fact, handle the mixture as little as possible—only enough to combine the ingredients together. Kind of the same way you make biscuits. That’s what you want to do here.

So, with your hands (or a fork, if you’d rather not get your paws all gooey), gently mix the ingredients together until just combined.

Like this:

Line a baking sheet with foil, then set a piece of parchment paper on top (if they stick, they’ll be much easier to get off the paper than the foil).

Form the loaves

Measure out 1 1/4 cups of meatloaf mixture. Plop it on your pan.

Shape the mixture gently, so that it resembles half a football. Again, you want to go easy here. Don’t mash the mixture together, which can make it tough and dense.

Repeat with the rest of your mixture, until you have 6 mini loaves.

I made mine a little smaller, so I could have enough to experiment with baking them in ramekins.

Grab your ketchup. Plunk a generous tablespoon on top of each loaf.

With your finger (or the back of a spoon), spread the ketchup around so that it covers the top.

Repeat with all your loaves.

Bake the meat loaves

Pop them into your preheated 350-degree oven. If you’re baking them in ramekins, set the dishes on a pan to catch any drips (mine bubbled over a little).

Bake 40-45 minutes, until they reach an internal temperature of 155-160 degrees. Start checking them after about 30 minutes, as your final cooking time will depend on how thick your particular loaves are. When they’re done, yank them out of the oven.

Now, depending on how fatty your meat is, your meat loaves are going to let out a little—or a lot—of juice. Don’t be alarmed if yours look like this. It’s kind of gross, I know. But it’s just fine.

The last time I made meatloaf, I followed the Pioneer Woman’s advice and made them on a broiling pan. All the fatty juice leaked out, but it was still moist. I like how you do it, too- meatloaf should not be baked in a loaf pan, no matter how hard my dad tells me to think of the juice it’s floating in as “gravy”.

Ya know, I *almost* put them on a rack, but didn’t because Ina didn’t recommend it in the original recipe. These were fine scooped off the way I did it, but I’ll definitely try the broiling pan next time. Thanks for the tip!

Ya know, I went back this morning and added a few notes about the ramekins. I loved the idea, too, but unfortunately they turned out a wee bit on the greasy side. I’ll have to look around. Someone must make special mini meatloaf pans with a grate in the bottom to catch the grease….Will let you know.

Hey Jessie! I’ve always used the Ann Lander’s recipe..it’s the same one my mom used. Or sub out the ketchup with Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce. I bought a great meatloaf pan at Walmart..it’s got holes in the bottom that drips into a larger meatloaf pan. It comes out nice and moist without the grease. I got a terrible mini meatloaf recipe off of allrecipes awhile back and haven’t made them since. I like the ingredients in this one. I’ll give it a try this week and let you know how it goes!

What IS it about meatloaf ? First the word…and as I read your headline and say ” Oh goodie, Jessie is makin’ meatloaf”…..but the amazing photos…..girl, you have that skill down to a science!! And the clear, feel- like- one- is- standing -beside- you instructions have my TOTAL attention….

Well Jessie, you have certainly won me over with this tempting recipe. I love caramalized onions and use them whenever I can. You photos are great, I just love how much detail you have gone into and having so many photos makes it easy for a novice cook to see the result they shoud have every step of the way.
Great recipe – tasty & tempting.

oh man. j loves meatloaf, and the first recipe i tried (and still use, a combo of a gramma recipe and a cooks illustrated/america’s test kitchen one) said to make it on a cookie sheet/broiling pan. i was all ‘BUT HOW CAN IT BE A LOAF?!’

when i saw all that grease i was
a.) so glad it wasn’t in a loaf pan
b.) worried i did something wrong

turns out that’s just what happens but i’m glad to know i’m not alone!

I made mini loaves with carmelized onions and peppers, added lentils, sauteed mushrooms.. to rund turkey breast.. NO FAT!. my fav part was stuffing the middle with grated cheese and chopped baby spinach.